News from the Tulgey Wood – Wookie Life Day Edition

(Note: this is from our email newsletter that comes out no more than once a month during our “off season” and weekly when we’re broadcasting shows. You can sign up for it to fall into your inbox here!)

According to certain very dedicated Star Wars fans, today is “Life Day,” a holiday first mentioned in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. Having seen it back before YouTube, when George Lucas had almost succeeded in eradicating all known copies of the program, well, it’s not something I can recommend. Some things that are seen cannot be unseen.

For some things to hear, however, we can heartily suggest some options. Both seasons of Quorum and the interludes are being broadcast Sundays at 3pm on WERA, plus we’ve expanded where you can hear our shows… 

Get All Our Podfeeds on Amazon Music/Audible 

In our continuing efforts to reach new listeners who enjoy our style of audio fiction, we’ve made sure all five our our shows are on Amazon Music and Audible, so if you regularly use the services or have a friend who does, you can check us out there:

Two New Individual Podfeeds for Existing Shows   

Many of you longtime listeners know we started with one single, all-in-one podfeed for all our shows, but a couple years ago, we broke out our most popular shows, Rogue Tyger and Quorum, into their own podfeeds. We decided it was time to give our two anthology shows a chance to shine and find more of an audience in their own podfeeds. If you haven’t checked out these dramatic readings and semi-full cast episodes, all with award-winning sound design, now’s your chance!

You can still hear just about everything we do audio-wise on our all-in-one podfeed, which, considering the season, you can think of as a sort of audio feast. (I say “just about everything,” because, of course, our Patrons get to hear some bonus behind-the-scenes goodies and a few exclusive full-cast episodes on Patreon).

Thanks for reading, thanks for listening and safe travels to all of you in the States who are venturing forth to see family and friends this Thanksgiving. We’ll be back with more  updates in December.

Regards,

Bjorn Munson
Artistic Director, Jabberwocky Audio Theater

P.S. As mentioned above, you can always hear us  Sundays at 3pm ET on WERA. You can also follow us on Podchaser, hear all of our episodes on our all-in-one podfeed, and naturally, the website — as well as a host of services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. (These links go to our all-in-one podfeed, we’ll be updating our links soon). 

News from the Tulgey Wood – Now Fully Fall Edition

(Note: this is from our email newsletter that comes out no more than once a month during our “off season” and weekly when we’re broadcasting shows. You can sign up for it to fall into your inbox here!)

Autumn has come full force here in the Tulgey Wood. The leaves are changing. The days are shorter. The nights are cooler…  but the creative fires are still burning here at Jabber-HQ.

In addition to continued work on season three of Rogue Tyger, writing continues on season three of Quorum, and we’re working on a comprehensive website re-design, with some expanded sections — including a web store with merch we hope you’ll find frabjous. 

Get Your Binge Listening On with “The End” 

One of the sections we’re going to build up is resources, both for listeners and for fellow podcasters. We’ve benefited greatly from knowledge shared between colleagues in the audio fiction community, so we plan to do our part to point out great sites like The End

We were happy for Rogue Tyger to be featured in their issue #52, as the first two seasons of our space opera have a complete story arc, but if you are an avid listener of audio fiction –and by all indications, many of you are– you can find a whole host of great podcasts to fill up your podcatcher. 

Wrapping Up Rogue Tyger Bonus Content, For Now…   

Speaking of Rogue Tyger,  we have been putting up bonus, behind-the-scenes audio segments all summer for our Patrons on Patreon. We’ve finished the re-broadcast of the first two seasons of Rogue Tyger on WERA, so we took the opportunity to do one last segment this past week. If you’re interested in becoming a backer on Patreon, you can do so for as little as a dollar a month. Higher levels give you additional benefits including bonus full-cast episodes of some of our shows like Quorum.

How will the Current Strikes Impact Audio Fiction?

Depending on how closely you follow the news, you may know that both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) are on strike for better pay and working conditions.

For Jabberwocky Audio Theater, you’ve heard members of SAG-AFTRA in just about all of our productions and, if all goes well, you will continue to do so. That’s because SAG-AFTRA is striking with the big studios (represented by an industry group known as AMPTP). For many indie producers who agree to SAG-AFTRA’s terms (the terms SAG-AFTRA would like the big studios to agree to), they can move ahead.

SAG-AFTRA has been offering a series of low-budget agreements to work with indie and student filmmakers for over a decade. In that vein, they’ve also recently created a series of low-budget agreements for podcasts — and the next Jabberwocky production will be under one of those agreements.

We’re hoping for a resolution to the strikes soon.

Casting 15 Roles for Three Episodes of Quorum

We’re getting ready to record the next installments of our award-winning, puzzle-laden crime series Quorum, and we’re looking for a more than a dozen voice actors to join our cast.

All roles are paid, recording will be done both in-person and remotely with the director, and we’re looking for audition submissions by Saturday, November 5th.

Details below.

Quorum: The Harbor Pilot’s Tale

The Series and the Episodes

Quorum is a slow-burn mystery where various Hitckcockian protagonists find themselves caught up in the machinations of a global cabal bent on… what? While we aim to keep the twists and turns and connections to real-world events entertaining in and of themselves, curious listeners pick up additional clues with each episode.

“The Harbor Pilot’s Tale” is a standalone installment that starts connecting pieces of the Quorum’s ultimate aim during a particularly action-packed stormy night in Switzerland.

“The Attorneys” and “The Physicists” are ‘found footage’ installments that build out the world and characters of Quorum in anticipation of season 3.

Recording Locations and Dates

We have two recording spaces in the Washington, DC area where the majority of our shows have been recorded for the past few years. Since the pandemic, we’ve also started doing remote recordings with the voice talent’s home recording setup.

All sessions, whether remote or in-person, will be directed live by Quorum writer/director, William R. Coughlan.

If you plan to record remotely, please make sure to record your auditions with the same home recording set-up you plan to use if cast. While we’re asking for auditions in mp3 format, our show recordings are mastered as 48k 24-bit WAVs.

Recording sessions will be scheduled between November 19th and December 20th, 2022.

Compensation

We originate on the non-profit, low-power FM station WERA-LP in Arlington, Virginia, so our pay scale is more in the ‘stipend/honorarium’ range than commercial range. It is not covered by a SAG-AFTRA agreement.

There is a base rate of $75 for each recording session plus an additional rate per line (e.g., you’re the protagonist with more lines, you get paid more). We anticipate all the roles for this casting will require one recording session.

Submission Instructions

For convenience, the character descriptions are listed below and a full PDF of all the character descriptions and their sides may be found at this link.

You may submit for as many characters as you feel you are a good fit for.

Record with your best available recording setup, especially if you plan to record remotely if cast.

You may record up to three takes of a given character’s lines if you want, but we’re also fine with just one take.

Please export the files in mp3 format with the naming convention “CHARACTER_YOURNAME.mp3”

Each character should be a separate mp3 file. If you’ve done more than one take for that character’s lines, please have them in the same mp3 file.

Once you’re ready to submit, send us an email to casting@teamjabberwocky.com with the subject line “Quorum 2022 Casting – YOURNAME”

In the body of the email, please include:

  1. Which character(s) you’re auditioning for.
  2. If you prefer to record in-person or remotely
  3. If you prefer remotely, some details about your recording setup
  4. Attached mp3 files of each character you’re auditioning for with the naming convention “CHARACTER_YOURNAME.mp3”
  5. Attached acting/voice actor resumes, attached demo reels, or links to publicly available demo reels — which are entirely optional, but may be useful for this or future casting.
  6. Anything else you think we should know about you.

Auditions must be submitted by Saturday, November 5th, regardless of time zone (yes, we know procrastinating Hawaiian voice actors have the advantage here).

We plan to make casting decisions by mid-November in order to schedule recording sessions between November 19th and December 20th, 2022.

Everyone who submits will be notified when casting decisions have been made.

We look forward to your submissions.

The Characters

Note: Besides some of the obvious accents, some of the characters have entire lines in German. Sprechen Sie gut Deutsch? Machmal gut? Gar nicht gut? Doch, Erlichkeit ist gut.

Below are the character descriptions only. Full sides may be found at this link.

THE HARBOR PILOT’S TALE

Klaus Brunner (male, early 60s) is the episode’s protagonist, a former merchant marine captain due to retire from his career as a harbor pilot for the Schweizerische Rheinhäfen (the Port of Switzerland) in Basel — and at least somewhat eager to do so after recent health warnings from his doctor. His voice is raspy, weighted with age, and he speaks English with a pronounced Swiss-German accent. As our story begins, he has been called back from his trip home to enable the urgent late-night departure of the river cargo coaster Liparus.

Simone Laplace (female, late 30s) is a French physicist working at the Geneva CERN facilities who finds herself held captive inside a metal cargo container aboard the Liparus. Upon her discovery by Brunner, she struggles to piece together the rationale for her abduction while evading her captors — and worrying about the fates of her missing husband and daughter. (Note: This character will also appear in a bonus sponsor-exclusive episode exploring some of her back story, and may also recur in future seasons of Quorum.)

Lachlan MacKinnon (male, early 50s) is the Scottish captain of the Liparus, and speaks with a pronounced accent peppered liberally with Scottish slang. He is trusting of his core crew, and generally comes across as amiable, but is somewhat thrown by Brunner’s unexpected presence, and is cautious not to reveal too much. Though nominally in command, in reality he must accede to the demands of formidable passenger Francesca Salazar.

Francesca Salazar (female, 40s) is the Spanish representative of multinational corporation Camellirosa Shipping (and possibly another, less overtly acknowledged role), traveling aboard the Liparus and personally supervising a special cargo shipment. She is unashamedly demanding and authoritative, with a voice almost serpentine in its barely-constrained authority. (Note: This character is expected to recur in future seasons of Quorum.)

Herbie Pitt (male, late 30s) is the Australian second mate of the Liparus, largely tasked with ship’s navigation, but easily distracted by his latest mobile-game obsession. Outgoing and gregarious on the surface, his personality can switch on a dime once crossed, unearthing a more sinister, even sociopathic aspect.

Curt Colepaugh (male, early 40s) is the American chief mate of the Liparus, in charge of cargo operations. Experienced and outwardly businesslike, but wary of the ship’s new client, Salazar, and the uncertain lines of authority that her presence introduces.

Lynette Brunner (female, early 50s) is Klaus’s English wife, who left her life in England behind when the pair were married. Though not pushy, she strives to be a voice of reason in the face of Klaus’s obstinacy, and is eager for the pair to reach some level of normality in their lives once he retires.

Hans-Rudolf (male, 50s) is a German-speaking Swiss pilot boat operator and longtime friend and coworker of Klaus’s. This night he is charged with picking Klaus up from the Liparus once the latter has steered the vessel safely out of port.

Baskin (male, 40s) is an intimidating Eastern European enforcer working under Camellirosa executive Francesca Salazar. A man of few words, he is more apt to allow the array of destructive weaponry at his disposal speak for him — without necessarily thinking through the consequences.

The Broadcaster (any gender, any adult age) is a German-speaking navigational radio operator for the Port of Switzerland in Basel, belatedly checking on the whereabouts of pilot boat driver Hans-Rudolf following the departure of the Liparus.

THE ATTORNEYS

Allen Hill (male, 30s) is an ambitious Deputy-in-Charge of the Real Estate Fraud section of the LA County District Attorney’s office. After being tipped off to a series of criminal activities, he is eager to close his case with the help of his key witness.

Abril Ramas (female, 50s) is the lead attorney for Anton Kreitzer, a high-powered capitalist who has recently left the country after being unintentionally caught up in a criminal conspiracy.

Henry Cumberland (male, 50s) is the Fraud and Corruption Prosecutions Director of the LA County District Attorney’s office. Eager (or at least willing) to pursue the truth, but well aware of the political constraints in taking on a high-profile prosecution in Los Angeles.

THE PHYSICISTS

Michelle Andreoli (female, mid-20s) is an American graduate student brought on board Dr. Laplace’s quantum entanglement team at the CERN laboratories. She is eager to take on this challenging work, but may know more about the project than she initially lets on.

Jean-Phillipe (male, 30s) is a French CERN engineer assisting Dr. Laplace in her experiments at CERN.

Again, the full sides are available at this link.

Questions?

If any of your questions have not been answered, feel free to email us at casting@teamjabberwocky.com.

Broadcast Time Change on WERA

If you’re one of the folks who listen to us live on the air (including live streaming over the internet), we have news!

Starting this month, Jabberwocky Audio Theater is moving from Sundays at 4pm ET to Sundays at 3pm ET.

WERA, live on the air

This is part of an overall move on the station’s part to consolidate similar programs, so we’ll still be followed by our fellow audio fiction show The Hawk Chronicles, but now follow Paul McGehee’s Time Machine.

Now you can enjoy a big block of audio fiction and history every Sunday afternoon. That schedule again is:

  • 1:30pm ET – Paul McGehee’s Time Machine
  • 3:00pm ET – Jabberwocky Audio Theater
  • 3:30pm ET – The Hawk Chronicles

JAT Jot # 17: September 2022

JAT Jot

An update for September 2022 including:

1) A thank you to everyone who supported us for the People’s Choice Podcast Awards. (There’s always next year)

2) We’ll be airing at the Minnesota Webfest from September 25th to September 28th.

3) We’ll be airing at the Miami Web Fest from September 29th to October 2nd.

4) You can sign up for our mailing list on our web site

5) You can get dozens of bonus goodies by backing us on Patreon.

JAT Jot # 16: July 2022

JAT Jot

Here in July 2022 to let you know three things:

1) We should be back on the terrestrial airwaves this month

2) This month’s Patreon bonus segment is about the origins of Quorum character names.

3) This month, we need you to go to https://www.podcastawards.com/ and nominate “Quorum” in the Fiction category for the People’s Choice Podcast Awards.

It’s time for the People’s Choice Podcast Award Nominations!

Okay, the JAT Phone technically isn’t a thing, but if it was, it’d look something like this:

Will you answer the call?

Why’s it ringing? Because the 2022 People’s Choice Podcast Awards are upon us and we need your help!

What can you do?

  1. Go to the Podcast Awards website
  2. Register for free (this allows you to nominate now and potentially vote on finalists later).
  3. Nominate “Quorum” in the “Fiction” category.

But please take the time to do it now! The nomination period and the registration deadline to be able to vote on the finalists is Sunday, July 31st, 2022!


In case you want some screenshots, here you go.

First go to the Podcast Awards website. You should see a screen that has a blue box for nominating podcasts:

After you click on the blue box, you’ll be taken to a registration page:

Don’t forget to check that checkbox near the bottom about being randomly selected to vote on the final slate in August! Hopefully, Quorum will be among the finalists.

Once you’re registered, you can log in and see the categories listed alphabetically, so you’ll likely need to scroll down to see “Fiction” and select Quorum. Feel free to nominate shows in other categories you’re interested in, but you don’t need to nominate someone in all the categories.

Once you’re sure of your selection, you can click the “save” button at the bottom of the screen and it will lock in those categories you selected. You can always come back and add nominations, but we don’t know of a way for you to unlock your saved nominations, so take your time.

Then, we wait for news of whether we’ve made the cut.

Thank you all so much for your support and we hope to have good news in August!

Broadcast Schedule On Hold for June

For all our listeners who like to tune into WERA every Sunday at 4pm ET, we have some bad news: we’ll be off the air for the month of June.

Our “home base” radio station is doing some much-needed maintenance and upgrades, so all the pre-recorded programs will be off until June 30th.

You should be able to hear us again on Sunday, July 3rd.